A wide variety of electrical connectors have been designed for terminating flat cables or circuits, such as flat flexible cables, flexible printed circuits or the like. A typical connector for flat circuits includes a dielectric housing molded of plastic material, for instance. The housing has an elongated opening or slot for receiving an end of the flat circuit which has generally parallel, laterally spaced conductors exposed across the end. A plurality of terminals are mounted in the housing and are spaced laterally along the slot, with contact portions of the terminals engageable with the laterally spaced conductors of the flat circuit. An actuator often is movably mounted on the housing for movement between a first position whereat the flat circuit is freely insertable into the slot and a second position whereat the actuator clamps the circuit in the housing and biases the circuit against the contact portions of the terminals. An example of these types of connectors is shown in Japanese Utility Model Application Laid-Open No. H6-17165.
In a widely used type of flat circuit connector, the flat circuit is insertable into a slot at the front of the connector housing, and the actuator is pivotally mounted on the housing generally at the top, front thereof overlying the slot in a closed position of the actuator. However, conventional flat circuit connectors have problems in that, when the connector is mounted on a printed circuit board and so used, debris, dust or other foreign objects may enter the electrical connection area between the contact portions of the terminals and the conductors on the flat circuit, possibly leading to short circuits between adjacent terminals and/or between adjacent conductors.
For example, when a printed circuit board is used with a thin display apparatus, such as a plasma display television which is to be fixed to a main body of the thin display apparatus, the circuit board is held in a substantially vertical position or plane. The circuit board then is screwed to the main body by using self-tapping screws. During the course of assembly, debris is generated upon attachment of the circuit board by use of the self-tapping screws. In this particular application, a flat circuit connector already has been mounted on the circuit board, and a flat circuit already has been inserted into the connector. Therefore, the above-mentioned debris may fall onto the connector, particularly when the connector is located beneath the tapping screw locations. The debris often will enter the connection area between the terminals of the flat circuit connector and the conductive traces on the printed circuit board, or the debris may enter or fall into the connection area between the contact portions of the terminals and the conductors on the flat circuit. This can lead to short circuits between the terminals, between the conductors and/or between the circuit traces on the circuit board. The short circuits may electrically break a circuit in the thin display apparatus and result in a large loss. Of course, this example is but one example where debris often can enter flat circuit connectors creating the above problems. The present invention is directed to solving such problems.